Weekly ForceCast: November 4, 2011
Batman disses Jar Jar, Yoda hits a pedestrian, Billy Dee asks about Jabba's "salacious" appendage, and author Alex Bledsoe blames George Lucas for his son's tears. Plus, learn how you can win a copy of Daniel Wallace's The Jedi Path courtesy of Chronicle Books. Guests *Guests go here. Topics *Jason and Jimmy talk about Halloween, which is yesterday as they record the show. *Jason plays the next entry in the ForceCast's Songify contest. This entry uses audio from the May 27th, 2011 show, when Jimmy imitated Patrick Stewart apologizing for an on-stage incident by saying that he had been drunk. *The ForceCast has three copies of the paperback edition of The Jedi Path to give away. Jason says that to win a copy, listeners must send a tweet to @forcecast with the hashtag "#jedipath" and their favorite Jedi proverb or saying. *Jason says that the official show blog on ForceCast.Net will begin featuring a collection of listener emails called The Weekly Listener Mailbag. These emails can contain anything from original Star Wars art to a cool convention story to feedback on a ForceCast episode. *The newest ForceCast video podcast, featuring camera work and editing by J.C. Reifenberg, has just been released. It includes various content from Fan Days IV in October. *Jason announces that Drew Karpyshyn, author of the upcoming Star Wars novel The Old Republic: Revan, will be talking to Jay Shepard and Chris Wyman on the next episode of Jedi Journals. *The ForceCast's listener appreciation show is coming up. It will take place during Thanksgiving week. Jason tells listeners to get ready for an all-listener episode, with open phones and feedback galore. *Billy Dee Quote of the Week **This week's clip is Billy Dee talking about his impressions of Jabba the Hutt's palace in ROTJ. In the clip, Billy Dee says he thinks Salacious Crumb is a metaphor for Jabba's "appendage." *Star Wars in Pop Culture **Season 2, episode 23 of the TV show Batman Beyond featured a reference to the Star Wars Prequels. **The 2011 Halloween episode of How I Met Your Mother had a Star Wars reference that spoofed Luke's line, "That's not true! That's impossible!" *Headline News **Author Alex Bledsoe wrote an angry post on the Borders website over the summer about how he had renounced his Star Wars fandom. His main point was that The Clone Wars is setting up kids to be fans of the clone army and Anakin Skywalker, only to dash their hopes and crush their hearts in Episode III. Furthermore, Bledsoe calls it "unforgivable" that Anakin is shown killing Younglings. ***Jason says that, while he doesn't agree with Bledsoe, he's rethinking how dramatic Revenge of the Sith really was. As Jimmy points out, ROTS was the only Star Wars film to receive a PG-13 rating. ***Jason disagrees with Bledsoe's assertion that George Lucas was a ruthless money-grubbing profiteer who disregarded these pro-Anakin sentiments when he made ROTS. Jason says that only by portraying such a dramatic shift from TPM Anakin to ROTS Anakin could Lucas create such a profound emotional reaction. "It's supposed to be shocking," Jason says. "It's supposed to show a huge transformation of character. That's the point, Alex!" ***Jason then speculates about why Lucas might have decided to start with Anakin as a kid in TPM. He suggests that it was to show how such a young, cherubic, cheerful child could be transformed into an agent of evil. *The Outrageous Unthinkable Story of the Week **A man in Germany was pulled over for drunk driving while wearing a Yoda costume. "It appears Yoda had enjoyed his evening too much," the news report said. Significant quotes *"If you thought being Vader's son was bad, how about being one-quarter Canadian?" - Jason, regarding the How I Met Your Mother clip